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Accountable to God alone? : theologising with a hammer : the HIV/AIDS crisis, condoms and Catholicism

Nicholls, Gordon Charles (2003-03)

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2003.

Thesis

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Theological positions are usually considered as coterminous with ethical
considerations. That which the Church has earnestly considered in the light of what is
believed to be God's will, as elucidated in religious texts and through prayerful
contemplation, are considered to be ethical without contradiction.
Recently the Roman Catholic Church adopted a position forbidding the use of
condoms as protection from contracting HIV/AIDS. Instead, the Church has declared
that the way to controlling the AIDS pandemic is via sexual abstinence for the
unmarried and sexual faithfulness within marriage.
It is acknowledged that it is not possible for all the church's theological positions to be
driven by pragmatic concerns within society. Nor can a church easily be seen to be
promoting sex outside of marriage by recommending the indiscriminate use of
condoms. However, the Roman Catholic Church, by forbidding the use of
contraception, puts itself in an ethically questionable light relative to other Christian
churches.
The Catholic Church needs to reconsider its stance on contraception from first
principles, divorced from dogmatic beliefs and practices which were derived by men
and which have endured beyond their usefulness or theological veracity. It is evident
that a church should not adhere to dogmas that are ungodly in their impact and
ethically questionable in their import. If a church needs to revise its dogmatic stance
on such issues, it should have the courage to do so.
This research considers whether the stance of the Catholic Church on condoms can be
considered ethical. The position of the Catholic Church is considered critically from a variety of philosophical, empirical and ethical viewpoints. In so doing, it highlights the
principled and practical problems of resolving differing moral positions that cross the
religious and secular divide.
The approach adopted is one of an applied ethical nature, given the probable effects of
participating in unprotected sex. Pregnancy and contracting HIV/AIDS are the likely
outcomes of not using condoms, and these conditions will create enormous problems
for the individual concerned, her, or his, family, as well as for the greater society.
The position taken in this research is that the Catholic Church's stand on abstinence
before marriage and faithfulness in marriage, as the answer to the HIV/AIDS crisis,
would be a realistic ethical position, if, and only if, it was at all feasible and realisable
in practice. However, it is the contention of the author, based on empirical
considerations, that the idealistic stance taken by the Catholic Church is out of touch
with the realities in our contemporary South African society and is doomed to failure.
Given this perspective, the Catholic stance is morally questionable, as, if sexual
relationships continue to occur outside of marriage, and if condoms are not used, the
result will be unwanted pregnancies, HIV infections of both mothers and their babies,
crises for families and society at large, and ultimately widespread death from AIDS.
Given the pandemic facing South Africa, the Catholic position in banning the use of
condoms, is ethically questionable and morally suspect. The Church needs to be called
to account for the implications of its dogmatic stance.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is simply too serious for a public institution, such as the
Catholic Church, to be involved in perpetuating theological niceties and holding
idealised positions. The Church is not divorced from the society it exists in and a
realistic, responsible and accountable response is needed in the current context of
hundreds of thousands of persons facing death from AIDS and its related diseases.